Former Aerosmith Guitarist Jimmy Crespo Hospitalized After Fall

Jimmy Crespo, who played lead guitar with Aerosmith during Joe Perry's estrangement from the group, was recently in an intensive care unit after suffering a fall. However, former L.A. Guns singer Chris VanDahl said that Crespo is getting better, although he is still in the hospital.

"I’m happy to report (with Jimmy and Cynthia’s blessing) that Jimmy has been downgraded from the ICU and is doing much better," VanDahl wrote on Facebook after visiting Crespo. "For those of you who have been asking about what happened? Several days ago Jimmy slipped and hit his head extremely hard. Up until recently his speech center was affected. Can’t tell you how happy I am to report that that certainly wasn’t the case today."

"We had a wonderful conversation and visited for quite some time," VanDahl continued.. On behalf of Jimmy, Cynthia and myself, thank you all for your well wishes, prayers and positive energy! Jimmy will be out of the hospital soon enough and back to doing what it is he does best. Playing 🎸!"

Crespo joined Aerosmith in 1979 towards the end of the sessions for Night in the Ruts, contributing a guitar solo on "Three Mile Smile." He stayed with them through their next effort, 1982's Rock in a Hard Place, co-writing most of the material with Steven Tyler. As Crespo later said, the poor sales for the last two records coupled with Tyler's escalating drug use led to a change in the lineup.

"Columbia wouldn't advance us any money for the album. They wanted to hear the recordings before they would give us any money. This kind of made it into a stalemate situation, and all the while Steven wasn't in the best health. There were a few ideas floating around, though."

Crespo and Rick Dufay were gone, which paved the way for Perry and Brad Whitford, who left in 1981, to return.

"It was a major disappointment," Crespo continued. "To be honest, I didn't expect to be in Aerosmith as long as I was without making a lot more albums. I expected in that time we would have made at least two or three albums, and I would have liked to have made four or five in that period, but things just weren't that productive with all the problems."